came was from that work for ukraine for the russian-backed president, and that s where all this money came from. and when that spigot was turned off, that s when they tried to avoid taxes and hide their other income, right? i mean, that s how the scheme worked. that s how the scheme worked in part 2. in part 1, they were just flat out laundering the fruits of their successful lobbying campaign. one always asks the question, why did trump bring manafort onto the campaign? some say it s because of delicate counts. others are saying because of what gloria said, he has a connection to ukraine, he has the connection to russia which creates the basis of the relationship that is said to be the heart of the collusion counter-intelligence part. there is a lot to be sorted out which is why they need manafort. you could ask the question the other way. why did manafort want to join
uranium one investigation, the decision to lift the gag rule on this witness. why is this being done now? are we really to believe this is being done for completely independent investigative reasons that some of the justice department completely on their own decided this is a good time to re-examine a 7-year-old uranium transaction? no. this is a response to the president s tweets, his badgering. i m not going to ignore the plain reality of this because it is going on. as i said, you don t have to be a genius to see this or a cynic to see this. the justice department is taking action as a direct result of this lobbying campaign by the white house. i think i would be dare likt as republicans are if i wasn t calling this out and sounding the alarm. i don t want to spend the time on this but i say you were asserting your suspicions as fact. if you get facts to back up your
look at the reopening of uranium one investigation. look at the decision to lift the gag rule on this witness. why is this being done now? are we really to believe this is being done for completely independent investigative reasons that some at the justice department completely on their own decided, hey, this is a good time to re-examine a 7-year-old uranium transaction? no. this is a response to the president s tweets, his admonitions, his badgering and i m not going to ignore the plain reality of this because it is going on. and as i said, you don t have to be a genius to see this and you don t have to be a cynic to see this. the justice department is taking actions as a direct result of this lobbying campaign by the white house. and i think i would be derelict as the republicans are derelict if i wasn t calling this out and sounding the alarm. well, i don t want to spend the whole time on this, but i will say you re asserting your suspicions as fact, and if you
did it anyway. i want to bring in national security reporter kenny d., ken delanian. as well as my panel, o brien, quinn. what have you sources told us about this? walk us through. a u.s. official has partially confirmed to us, reporting what first broke last night in the new york times, which is before jeff sessions recused himself from the russia investigation in march, white house counsel dan mcgann and other white house officials called him to try to persuade him not to do that. the times and other organizations are saying donald trump personally directed this lobbying campaign because trump did not want sessions to recuse himself. the reason that s important is because it figures in robert mueller s investigation of whether trump obstructed justice. the times has a very detailed reporting that trump really believed his attorney could protect him from the russia investigation. and the times goes further and suggests that trump cited the russia investigation into a draft l
moments ago tonight, we also mentioned two of these other breaking developments. special counsel mueller and these new maneuverings in the investigation of trump and russia. there are two separate reports here i m going to legally break down on the special counsel. they focus on two different former aides to the president. former national security adviser mike flynn and former campaign chairman paul manafort. late today the wall street journal reporting that mueller is looking at flynn s potential role in russia collusion, specifically an effort, a republican effort apparently to get clinton e-mails from russian harkers h e hackers. that is one big development tonight. nbc news has the other one, this involves paul manafort, reporting that mueller has now begun issuing his first grand jury subpoenas that seek testimony from pr executives who worked on an international lobbying campaign headed by manafort. the stated goal of the lobbying campaign, this was 2012 to 2014,